So much for a break from alcohol

One of the things I resolved to do after leaving Mexico (as you may recall) was to waste less money, and to sacrifice less brain cells, on alcohol. I figured that going on adventures, and getting out of the big cities, would make this easier. Well, it hasn't quite turned out that way, on the Salkantay hike. I've been on a mission of virtual abstinence from alcohol the whole trip. But absolutely everyone else in my group — especially the Belgian Front — has had the exact opposite mission. And they've taken it upon themselves — "for your own good" — to render my mission a failure. They seem to have succeeded.

I haven't bought a drop of alcohol the entire hike. But everyone else has been buying family-size Cusqueñas by the truck-load, every night (yes, they sold them at the campsites!), and filling my glass before I have a chance to so much as sneeze. It's ridiculous! I'm trying to have a nice, healthy, sober few days with nature, and nobody else wants a bar of it. Piece of advice for anyone planning on an alcohol-free trip in the wild: leave the Pommies, the Irish, the Norweigians, the Argentinians, the Germans, and (more so than anyone else) those damn Belgians back home!